The Academes
by Antiquarianne
Summary: A series of shorts based around the women in Erik's life. Leroux. -ish. Complete.
1. Madonna with Child

_A/N: This is a little series of shorts born out of hospital waiting rooms. I have seven hand-written, and will be posting them as I have the opportunity to type them up. They're Leroux-ish, canon-ish, but mostly for my own amusement (warning: alliteration abuse). For those familiar with _A Stroll on Sunday_, this is definitely _that_ Erik. Enjoy!_

* * *

_Italy, 1847_

Some monsters were born of monsters. Other, of mothers. Some mothers _were_ monsters, of course, but Erik chose not to dwell on that particular point.

His own mother—most assuredly mother, not monster—was little more than a fantasy creature to him, belonging to a world of Romantic ruins and Medieval accents. It was a world Erik had no quarter in. What few memories he did have of the place, of her, attested to that fact. He had the distant impression that they had even called him by some other name, though he could never quite remember what it had been.

No matter. That name—that world—that woman—were all so very far in the past. Erik was now a monster-boy on the verge of monster-manhood, and he had no need for muddled memories of a missing mother or the world she came from. Did he? No, he certainly did not.

It was, in fact, very surprising to him when that old fairyland decided to intrude upon him on that oddly chill spring day. It was a day that had seemed much too rooted in pitiless reality to be conquered by something as pastoral as the memory of a woman's face. It was a day when Erik had taken his jokes too far and found himself fleeing in carnival mask.

(How could anyone be mad at a man—boy—man dress for Carnival in Venice? At least, how could anyone be mad enough to incite a _mob?_ The Italians, Erik decide primly, were simply given over to dramatics. One needed only witness a performance of a traveling theater troupe to be so convinced.

Still, it was prudent to recall that so many of those little passion-plays involved comically harsh comeuppance for the evil tricksters. Erik doubted that he would find the resulting humor much to his taste, if that bit of fiction was brought to life.)

He had vanished inside a church, not because he had any faith in sanctuary, but because shadows had never failed him and these gothic monstrosities were always full of them.

It was in a shadow that he saw her, and in a stained glass gloom that he remembered. A fresco of the Madonna—with Child—played hide-and-seek in an alcove, looking ever so serene in her lonely, forgotten corner of the world.

_She_ had been like that, Erik recalled, his mother-monster-mother from pixilated Normandy. She had been so very like that, so frighteningly like that, so much so that Erik tried to discount the notion as a trick of plaster and soul-weariness. But the image was irreparably branded on his eyes, in his mind, and it struck true in his heart. He saw her now, that face that would have seduced and confounded any Renaissance master. High cheeks and deep eyes, pale, pale skin and titian hair, perpetual melancholy and a well-worried rosary.

He thought, too, of soft tender touches—not as a memory unto themselves, but rather a memory of something once possessed and then lost. He remembered slender white hands and piano keys and a funny old ostrich egg and those perpetual rosaries. Morning and evening, days melting into years, her fingers ghosting over the decades. Saint or sinner, his mother? Saint, of course. Certainly a saint. With all of her Queen-of-Heaven beauty, how could she have been otherwise?

And then there was that _one_ memory: her hands on the piano, and then Erik's own, mimicking the motions he had seen her make a hundred times before. What a sound that had been! What a magical thing, to know that his own hands could coax melody from wood and string and ivory as she could. But more than that—that _other_ sound. After she had watched him at the instrument she had whispered, over and over again: "It's a gift of God. Oh, God, let it be _your_ gift."

How could he have forgotten that voice? How could he have forgotten that _face?_

Erik stayed in that little nook for untold hours, unable to look away from the Madonna that might as well have been his mother. He wondered what she would have thought of that idea. He had the vague idea that she would have been displeased, but how could one be displeased to be compared with something so beautiful, so lovingly crafted?

(There was something else, some memory shut up with that other-name of his, and it had a suggestion of hellfire and holy water and tears beyond measure. Erik ignored it.)

One of the priests found him eventually, and shooed him away. He drifted out into the dawn-lit city, and lost himself as much as a free man might. He remembered and forgot, forgot and remembered by turns.

She must have died, Erik decided. He could not quite recall, but that must have been the case. His father—the mason-magician who fitted stone together as lesser men did wood—was long gone, he knew. But the beautiful widow he had left, with her divine serenity cracking with something like fear and something like anguish? She must be gone, as well.

_Poor Mother,_ Erik thought. _Poor Mama, looking like Mary and the world expecting a new Christ-child to fit in her arms, and ending up with me._

Perhaps he would return one day, though the idea made Erik suddenly uneasy. He could pay his respects at her grave, and maybe find out what that old name of his had been, and perhaps see if anyone still had that ostrich egg. He had so loved it, in those days with his monster-mother.


	2. Sword Dance

_One of the shorts revolving around a rather non-canonical character._

* * *

_Russia, 1850_

There was a rumor that the Ottoman Sultan's harem was made up entirely of Circassian women.

Erik could not possibly comment on the veracity of that. His knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, Sultans, and harems was quite limited, alas. But if it _was_ true, well! Now that he was mask-to-face with _her,_ he could easily see the logic behind the Sultan's predilection.

Erik had seen many a pretty woman during his time in Nijni Novgorod: the wives of wealthy merchants, the local girls in sarafans, the slaves awaiting their fates in the markets. But none—_none_—compared to the young lady who was now standing in the crowd of spectators Erik was _entertaining._

Her dress was slim-fitting, black and gold, with a high collar and velvet shirtfront covered in gold buckles: undoubtedly Circassian, and well-off at that. She listened to Erik sing, head tilted, dark eyes mischievous. Fine dark hair in two impossibly long braids, gold rings on elegant fingers, dazzling. She came, with her serving girls in tow, to hear Erik sing, as everyone did these days. And she listened, so intently, with such a look of irony painted on.

He found that he could not stand to take off his mask when she came to see him, though that was always the part of the act that earned him the most coin. He kept on his devil's mask to conceal his devil's face, and sang blessing down on her beauty.

If she knew that he sang so especially for her, she did not give any indication of caring. She paid no more heed to him than any of the other entertainments in the bazaar that she frequented.

She liked acrobats and dancers, musicians and artisans, and yes—she rather liked the grotesque. Erik knew, for he took to ghosting her and her handmaidens.

She was Bora Toutaryk's firstborn daughter, he discovered. And Bora Toutaryk was a man of wealth and consequence amongst his people. It was rumored that his first dead wife had been a fairy-creature, so astoundingly beautiful she had been. Erik found it hard to believe she could have surpassed her daughter on that score.

He delighted in watching over her, being her silent guardian angel, as she walked—so tall, so proud!—amongst the pedestrian masses. He learned enough of her language to find that she was betrothed and soon to be wed, and the thought hurt him. What man was worthy of this goddess-girl?

Still she came, every few days, to Erik's little outpost, and listened to him call down the harps of heaven in his voice. She was generous in what she ordered her servant girl to give him, but Erik always refused.

Then came the day—_that_ day—when she had called out for Erik to take off his mask as he sang.

How many times had he done that very thing, always to the disgust and amusement of the crowd around? It was the one act sure to transform an audience into a crowd of spectators, and he was loathed for her to see him so.

But, her eyes held all the persuasion of Erik's voice, and he found that he could not refuse her.

She had paled, and tensed, and she was—_she was —_disgusted. She had backed away and left with the same haste that _everybody_ did.

That night, Erik had railed and thundered against heaven itself.

She did not return after that, and it pierced Erik, though he had expected it. She avoided him like the unholy plague he was, and he could not blame her.

But then—she was no where to be seen. She no longer laughed at the tamed monkeys, or tried on gold pendants, or chastised her servants with that wonderful, mocking voice. Erik worried for her.

It was not difficult to discover her fate. Indeed, it revolved around an event of some consequence and notoriety.

She had finally been given to her handsome little princeling, but the marriage was condemned to end before it began.

He had cut her, they said, while cutting away her maiden's corset. It was an unforgivable mistake, a bout of clumsiness that constituted an utter failure in his first husbandly office. She had been furious and had refused his further touch. He had been humiliated and had insisted. She— who had that proud arch of brow and that fire in her eyes—she resisted. He struck her—she struck back/ He lashed out with that wicked sharp side sword that had started the whole debacle.

The blade had crossed her face and the altercation ended as it might have began, in shock and blood.

The cut was bad, the gleeful gossips said. It was deep, and jagged through her brow, across her nose and cheek, pulling at her lip before ending at her jaw.

It was terrible, they reported, savoring every horrible word. Her beauty, so very much in the Circassian way, was ruined beyond redemption. She had fled back to her father's household, a virgin wife and desecrated masterpiece.

Erik listened to the tales, and he grieved for her, for she had been so wonderfully lovely. To have had such a face, and to have lost it, even in part! Poor girl, even if she could never be Erik's equal in misfortunes. Or?...

His grief gave way quickly to something else, something that made his heart sing and his body vibrate like a struck bell. Some voice from deep within whispered seductions in his ear, _nevermore alone. Never alone again._

He, of all people, would be able to see past such a trifle as a cut. And she—well! Would she not be glad to be free of the world that would now despise her? And once out of it, would she not be able to look at Erik and truly _see_? Why must they suffer alone, when they could find peace together?

It would perhaps take some time before Erik could keep her in the style she was accustomed to, but Erik was bright—Erik was _brilliant._ One day, someday, he would be a man of wealth and consequence, and what man of wealth and consequence did not keep a wife? And would not a wife help him in that suit? Would she not be, scarred as she was, a beacon announcing to the world that Erik was no less—and quite possibly much more—than rest of mankind?

He was running now, in his best coat and his most elegant mask, running towards Toutaryk's enclave. He darted in and out of shadow, singing to himself, thrilled at the thought of the future. He saw beautiful homes and riches and children with the Circassian girl's face and Erik's voice. He was not sure _how_ to make it all come about, how to woo and win her, but if anyone could accomplish the impossible—

He slowed as he came near the house Toutaryk had taken up, setting himself up in a secure shadow, examining its walls and looking for his way in…

"Did you hear what happened to Toutaryk's daughter?" Erik heard one of the servants address one of the local tradesmen. He kept still and quiet, waiting for them to pass his hiding place by

"That Paka used the wrong sheath for his sword? Of course."

The Circassian did not seem to hold the same delight in elaborating on the mundane that the Russian did. "She's killed herself."

The Russian gave an exclamation of surprise. Erik would have as well, if he had been breathing.

The servant went on. She had taken her father's pistol and set it off under her jaw.

Now that was a woman to be proud of, the Circassian said, one that was willing to make the hard choices. She would not live, a burden to her family, disgraced and disfigured.

But they could have been happy, Erik thought, so very numb. Somehow, someway—he could have made the girl who would not live with a scratch on her face happy. Surely, he could have.

Couldn't he?

* * *

_Circassian girls wore tight stays day and night throughout puberty. It was a rather critical part of a marriage that a new husband cut through the laces on the wedding night, without leaving a scratch on his bride. To have cut her would have resulted in utter humiliation for everyone involved._


	3. The Price of Blood

_Many thanks to my reviewers—I didn't expect to get so much feedback on this little whim of mine! I'm glad to know that these vignettes are being enjoyed._

_The Sultana has obliged me to up my rating, because she rather makes my skin crawl._

* * *

_Persia, 1855_

He had been more than a little enamored by her laughter before he even knew who she was.

It had been one of days at the Court of Mazanderan when Erik simply could not contain himself. Magic tricks and music and cutting jests flowed from him like a winter sea beating at a cliff face, relentless and suffocating. He was too known now, too feared to be held in check by anyone—even by himself.

He had very nearly gone too far that day, heaping abuse on the Shah himself with such finesse so that _most_ of listeners thought he was spinning out praise. Nasir al-Din was a bit too shrewd for that, and he had laughed along with hard eyes. Erik was emboldened and forced himself to manic new heights of cruel humor shrouded with wit and dissemblance. And when the company finally reached utter, hilarious confusion, Erik heard _her._

He knew it was a woman's laugh, from the tone and its location behind the carved-wood panels that separated the Shah's women from the rest of the world. And what was more—it was utterly, utterly genuine. Only liar—an _actor—_ of Erik's caliber could be so certain of the legitimacy of anything as political as a laugh in this quicksand culture. This hidden woman had somehow picked out his cleverest (and possibly vilest) comment of the night and had laughed, long and loud.

It was a beautiful laugh, too, all rose water and the crash of the Caspian Sea. He could live on that laugh, he imagined, and would be much displeased to live _without_ it.

But how to find a disembodied voice trapped behind a harem wall?

Erik pondered the question for days, and ultimately, it answered itself.

He was _summoned._

Not many people in Persia dared to demand his presence anymore. He probably would have wrought deadly vengeance on the presumptuous individual had the messenger been anyone but one of the harem eunuchs.

He was taken to one of the outer gardens near the women's quarters. The place was positively crawling with vicious half-men that the Shah had charged with guarding his wives and concubines. It was a different world, Erik realized. His _reputation_ meant precious little here. At last she came.

She was a tiny woman, barely coming up to Erik's chest, and utterly lost in the mountains of robes a woman was expected to wear in public. She wore the typical white veil, clasped with a decadent gold and ruby broach, and another veil worn across her lower face in the Arabian style. The shape of her eyes was obscured by thick kohl.

She bustled past him and sat at the edge of a fountain primly. "You're Erik," she said, her Persian a little too guttural for fluency, "you're the sorcerer. The Living Death. _The Angel of Death._"

Erik was positive that she was smiling beneath her veil. "And I know you." It had only taken a moment to place her, with her quirks of dress and accent and the imperious way she disregarded the conventions of the court. "You are the Sultana."

She laughed at that, the same marvelous, pure laugh that Erik had found so wonderfully intoxicating before. After sometime she spoke.

"Don't you find," her posture became girl-child demure, "don't you find it _dull, _this life? Isn't it awfully dull?"

For all intents and purposes, it was not. Erik had more to occupy himself with than ever before. He was overseeing one of the Shah's grandest building projects, he had the power and the means to amuse himself. He walked this land like a lord, and he had a wealth of knowledge and toys at his fingertips. He had taken to penning the music he heard in his head, and that was anything but dull. And yet… "Yes. It is."

She stared up at him, her gaze abstracted by the sweep of her lashes. "I just _knew_ you would understand."

When the Shah left Mazanderan for other parts of his realm, most of his women accompanied him. But the little Sultana always refused to leave, and she was not a woman to be crossed.

She _ruled_ in the absence of her lord and master, and she laughed easily to Erik's delight.

Easily, but she tired quickly of one notion and would demand another in quick turn. Erik obliged willingly and provided whatever entertainment he could devise. It took time away from his endeavors buts, but— _oh,_ to make her laugh. He could scarcely believe that he could make a woman laugh with little more than his own ingenuity. And she always asked for his presence when she was in need of 'something amusing,' and she never, _ever_ laughed _at him._

"It's a dangerous game you're playing at," the Daroga had said, in his sanctimonious sage monotone, "this will not end well, Erik."

Erik merely shrugged and made the Daroga's chair scream in put-upon agony.

The Daroga shook his head and blinked watery eyes.

Everything changed on the day the Sultana asked Erik to devise an entertainment that spotlighted three condemned men. It was not an uncommon fancy in the court, and Erik took liberties.

He never could quite comprehend what went wrong. He would think on it throughout the years, on those nights when sleep eluded him and music offered little solace. He replayed the scene over a thousand times, and all he ever knew was the end result: blood, more blood than he would have thought possible, and strips of a dead man's flesh tangled in his hair.

The Sultana had laughed. Oh, how she had laughed, and hearing her made that scene from hell nearly worthwhile.

Erik was dimly aware that the rest of the world was horrified, but what did that matter. He knew, with the force of every conviction in his heart, that she was smiling at him from under that white fabric.

She thrived on the violence that Erik could conjure, and she appreciated the art of the execution. Magic with mirrors, Erik worked, brilliance in blood. Deaths that made grown men revert to babbling children and made children stand as stone-eyed as any resigned elder.

When Erik at last _lost everything_, when the Daroga had to put him on a fast horse and play tricks with cadavers to save Erik's very life, he finally realized that he had _never even seen her face._

And he wondered, as his hands trembled and he fled away from Persia with all it wonders and horrors, if it had been worth the price he had paid.


	4. The French Protectorate

_This is my longest and least canonical piece—it's also the one I'm the most ambivalent about. It doesn't quite fit in with any of the other shorts. But what could I do? Leroux plainly said that Erik spent time cavorting around with Vietnamese pirates. How am I supposed to leave that alone?_

* * *

_Vietnam, 1860_

The Tonkin sailors thought that Erik was an ill-omen of colossal proportions, but they did not mind having him around.

Trinh Văn Minh, the captain's favorite lieutenant, explained it this way: "You're a French bastard, Erik. But you must be wicked bad luck for the French, so you're good luck for us."

_I'm bad luck for everyone,_ Erik thought, _most of all myself._ He desisted from commenting to that effect. It wasn't the sort of thing one brought to the attention to a ship full of superstitious men. Especially when one was nearly half a day out from shore.

Even with Minh's assurances, Erik saw how the others backed away from him. No matter. Erik figured that he was now somewhere around twenty-five and had lived with people skirting away from him for—well, as long as he could recall.

He had always managed conjure up some talent to off-set his… misfortune. He had been a quick student in Italy. In Russia, he had learned how to use his voice. As for Persia—well, never mind about Persia. Never mind about Constantinople, for that matter, and the only thing to mind about his last jaunt to Saint Petersburg was the opera…

Here, in the waters surrounding Vietnam—waters that swarmed with a French armada determined to bring the native peoples _in line_—all that mattered was that Erik was unusually strong and swift and could teach his shipmates creative taunts to hurl at the invaders.

"I think you're an awful person," Minh commented one day, when they had docked in his own small village. Erik did not reply, and frankly did not mind. There was something about Minh that defied malice. "You fight against your own people—your own blood. It sickens me. You deserve my sister's cooking. It's awful."

"But does it sicken you?" Erik asked.

Minh paused. "No. At least not very much."

"Thanks again for inviting me to dine with you," Erik replied dryly.

Minh shrugged. "You'd be murdered if you stayed in port."

Or someone would _attempt_ murder. And someone would fail, and there would be blood, and there was a part of Erik's soul that was glutted on blood.

As soon as they arrived, Minh's sister launched into a tirade at her brother. She spoke in pure, prestissimo Vietnamese, as opposed to the inelegant but workable Vietnamese-French-Chinese pidgin Erik usually used. He was at a loss for the specifics, but Erik caught a number of colorful epithets that informed his of the general nature of her discourse.

She did not like the French, she did not like Erik, and she did not like Minh for bringing such a man into the house she kept. She hurried away to continue cooking.

"I despair of my little Diem," Minh commented lightly. "She only blacks her teeth when we go to visit our grandparents."

Again Erik refrained from comment.

He was fed and lived to tell of it. Later, Diem made up a pallet for Erik to pass the night on, glowering all the while.

Erik had long since discovered that idleness at night did not suit him. He would inevitably be caught between sleep and waking nightmares. Sometimes angels sang to him. Sometimes the Virgin Mary berated him for tracking mud indoors. Sometimes the Sultana laughed. But always—_always—_the night turned into a pandemonium of devils and gore.

Just thinking about the prospect of it set Erik's teeth on edge. When the little household finally fell silent, Erik slipped out. The moon was full and bright, the air humid, and Erik could not help but wonder how he ended up _here?_

How had he ended up anywhere? Was it really possible that a man might live his entire life in one place, might die in the house he had been born in?

Erik tested out the idea. Was that a horrible fate—or a marvelous one?

What would it be like, to find a place and settle?

Lonely, he concluded.

But was he not always lonely, as it was?

And what if he did not need to be lonely?...

When he returned to the house, he found little sister Diem sitting outside in the bright moonlight. One of the local instruments sat in front of her, a large dan bau, and she coaxed low, miserable sounds from its single string.

"What are you doing?" She demanded when she caught sight of Erik. "You don't want to oblige me to scream. I can shake the souls of my ancestors out of the afterworld."

Erik walked past her, back into the house. "Don't be stupid, little sister."

* * *

The looting Erik did with the Tonkin would not make him rich. That did not much matter to him. He had funds enough squirreled away. But there was much to be learned from the sailors—well, pirates, if one wanted to be fanciful. Insurgents, if one did not. Ingenious uses of reeds, Erik thought, and clever water proofing techniques. But more than that, there was an opportunity. It was an embryo of a plan that Erik could hardly admit the existence of to himself. But if he wanted it to succeed, he needed French goods and French coin, and he could find both if he stayed with the Minh and his ship.

Alas, the weather was distressingly bad for some time, the seas to dangerous to brave. And when that happened, Erik paid a small sum to stay with Minh.

Diem still hissed at him on occasion, but the true malice of her words faded.

"I blame Diem on good, late father," Minh complained as the rain beat outside. "He filled her head with the legend of Lady Trieu. There's something that she had said—ah, I don't quite recall—_little sister!_ Hey!"

Diem poked her head into the room. "Yes?"

"What's that thing that Lady Trieu said that you love so much and use against me whenever I try to find a husband for you?"

Diem glanced between her brother and Erik. "_I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man._"

"Especially not a French one, I imagine," Erik said idly.

She blinked and withdrew.

* * *

There was a brief break in the rain, allowing the opportunity for one more raid, and it met with all the success Erik could have hoped for. Very soon now, very soon. As soon as the weather was better…

"What are you doing?"

Erik had borrowed—commandeered— Diem's four stringed lute and was attempting to play an aria on it. "I thought it was fairly self explanatory."

Diem sat across from him and stared. "Why do you wear a mask?"

"Because I'll too beautiful for this earth," Erik snapped back. He was going mad here, he thought, slowly and differently from any other madness than had ever touched him.

"As I thought," Diem said, "what are you playing?"

"A song from an Italian opera."

"An opera?"

"A sort of musical play."

"It doesn't sound… right," she commented. She had picked up Erik's pidgin faster than he would have thought.

"It's not written to be played on this sort of instrument," Erik admitted. "But I wanted to see if I could get an idea of how something composed for an orchestra might sound."

"Can you?"

"More or less," Erik paused, fingers hovering over the strings. He dropped his voice. "I've started to write something. I want to know what it really sounds like."

"An… opera?"

"Just an idea of one," Erik said.

"Play it," she said.

Erik huffed. "No."

"You stole my dan ty ba. It's only fair."

"I don't even know…"

"What do you need to know?" she asked. "You know the strings. You know how to feel the music. That's enough. But you already know that, I think." She lifted her chin. "So play."

Erik glared at her, but she did not flinch away. After awhile, his fingers started to move, almost of their own volition. It was like trying to keep his head above water—desperately necessary and monstrously difficult. But the idea was there, the core and soul of the song, and he managed to pull it out of four strings and a few frets.

He finished a little weakly, but Diem was frozen in place. "There's a… character. _Don Juan._ A wicked man with tremendous luck in… love. It's a story about him. I think."

"It doesn't sound right." She paused. "It's horrible." Another pause. "Frightening." An even longer pause. "It makes me sad." She stood and left Erik alone.

His eyes felt raw, and he realized that tears had tracked under his mask. How glad he was that he would be leaving.

He did not have to wait long on that score. Fair skies soon overtook the brutal rains. Minh prepared for another voyage, and Erik did likewise.

"You're wicked for abandoning the crew now," he grumbled, "You're a vile man. But at least you paid rent."

The shook hands awkwardly.

On the day Erik departed, he arose and dressed in a decent dark suit he had plundered from a French officer. It hung loose on him, but was not altogether all fitting. He trimmed his hair and dusted off a soft felt hat. He arranged his francs and a set of travel papers that were water damaged beyond recognition.

Diem met him outside of the house. She was with her dan bau, strumming dolefully. She glanced at him. "You'll be killed traveling in those clothes."

"No, I won't," Erik said.

She held a soft note for a long time. "I could come with you."

Erik blinked at her. "Don't be stupid, little sister. I'm going home."


	5. The Communarde and The Catacombs

_Since I was recently asked about the title of this collection, I thought I would offer a general explanation. I plagiarized William Shakespeare. _Love's Labours Lost_, Act Four, Scene Three: "_From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world_." _

_Now besides that that little bit about 'nourish,' I think it rather fits my Erik. I'm pretty sure his life has been all about the ladies, in a round about way._

_As a final note, this is the last original character short. (It also turned out to be much longer than I had thought. My handwriting had just been rather cramped that day.) We'll be thoroughly Leroux'd from here on out. :)_

* * *

Paris, 1871

The last time Erik had been this furious, Charles Garnier had ordered the Ionic columns Erik had designed for the main floor loggia to be replaced with ones of the Corinthian order. That had been more than five years ago, and Erik still grew murderous if he was occasioned to _go out_ and see the opera house's façade.

Still, that was merely a difference in opinion between an architect and his (undeniably more talented) contractor. Garnier could eat his dying and damned Second Empire dream for all Erik cared. But this—_this—_was vandalism.

_They_ had commandeered the opera house quite literally from top to bottom—the roof was now a launching pad for _hot air balloons_, and the cellars… well, the cellars were now real cells, a prison for everyone who did not quite conform to the glorious new republic, the irrepressible Commune.

Perhaps he would be less cynical about this new reign of _liberty, equality, and fraternity_ if such words actually meant something to him. Liberty? He had the freedom to do whatever he liked, so long as he did it in shadows. Equality? God knew, Erik could never be a man's equal. He danced between superiority and inferiority, and knew no balance twixt the two. And _fraternity?_ No soul would claim kinship with Erik, until that inevitable day he took his place with the legions of Hell.

No, as far as Erik was concerned, there was precious little difference between the Paris Commune and last year's siege by the Prussians. Both had halted work on the erstwhile _Imperial Academy of Music._

Politics! Erik was sure they worked well enough for _normal_ men, but he would just as soon ignore them. Kings, Emperors, Sultans, and Shahs had no place in Erik's world beyond the stage.

Alas, politics had caused the stage to languish, an incomplete mass of framework—rather like the rest of the opera house. He lived in that half-made masterpiece, and lived for the day that it might see some better semblance of life in its halls. But this? No, not this. This was an infestation. Desecration.

The Communard jailers had even taken it upon themselves to create a new series of corridors leading down to the cellars. The entry point was, of all places, in what should have been a dressing room.

…Did these revolutionaries even know how to read a blueprint? Couldn't they figure out that a better path would have started externally—say, the Rue Scribe? Idiots, imbeciles, and philistines to boot. Erik suffered no guilt when he leaked ether into the junction the guards dallied in. He wanted a closer look at the _amendments_ being made to his opera house, and he very much did not want to be accosted while doing so.

His reconnaissance did not go as planned. An unmarked, unfinished hall brought it to an abrupt end.

The drop itself was not terribly far, enough to bruise but not break, but it was followed by an unpleasantly long… tumble. Erik landed, winded and with no desire to try to arise. He conducted an inventory as best he could. No breaks, no sprains, no mask. He gave a cursory pat around the close ground, but found nothing. A single lit match did precious little to dispel the deep dark. The flame caught a tiny, metallic reflection. It turned out to be a gold wedding band on the hand of another unconscious man.

Not unconscious, Erik realized as the match burned down to his fingertips. Quite dead. His hands were bloodied and wrecked, as if he had attempted to climb to upper passage way. It had not turned out well. Perhaps he made it to the top and then took a misstep similar to Erik; but instead of rolling and banging his way to the ground he had fallen straight down. His body was rapidly cooling in the gloom, and Erik had little desire to keep company with a corpse.

He tried to conjure up a map of the bowels of the opera house in his mind. He had a vague idea of where he might be—near the waterworks—but who knew just how extensive the Communards had been in their alterations.

It had been only a month, Erik told himself. They couldn't have completely rerouted the underground structure. It was entirely possible that there was a door out of this little crypt—there! It was wood on wood, but Erik's fingers brushed over the hinges.

Next time, he was bringing a lantern.

Ah, he was deep under the stage, on the shore of the lake. There was precious little illumination here, either, though something diffused and and glittered on the water. There was supposed to be more light here, Erik remembered, but the vents and windows were mostly covered in scaffolding at the moment.

"_Fran__ç__ois!_"

Erik froze. A woman voice echoed weirdly, almost a siren's call from under the lake.

No, she was somewhere close by, hurried footsteps slipping in gravel and sand. "François! François, did you find a way out?"

Erik stayed stone still. He could barely make out her figure, a shadow on a shadow. She was turning around and around. She ended up stumbling right into him.

"_Fran__ç__ois!_" Erik felt the weight on a small hand rest on his chest, but was quickly withdrawn. "Or rather, not… Who are you? Did François send you? My God, it's been hours!"

_She can't see me, _Erik realized belatedly. If all he could see was a vague shadow, what more could she see of him? His hand flew up to his uncovered face. _She can't see me, she can't see me…_

"I'm one of the contractors," he said. His voice came out as a whisper, but he could hear it ring out over the water.

"Where's François?" she asked.

Single minded, this girl. Erik absently wondered if she wore a matching gold band to the dead man in the other room.

"I have not seen him. I took a fall."

"The same thing happened to us!" She said. "And then we ended up here, and then François went to find help… a contractor, you say? Do you know the way out? Do you even know where we are?"

"There should be a path into one of the lower cellars," Erik said, "provided we are not on the wrong shore, that is."

"What _is_ this place?"

"It's the lake," Erik said simply, "which is incorrect. It's a cistern, a massive man-made water reserve. Not a lake in the least." He tried to find the far wall. "Just stay there—I'll try to find—"

"No!" Erik flinched as he felt her hand latch onto him. "François left me here—you will not do the same!"

Erik searched the darkness for some idea of what her face looked like, but there was nothing to see. "Very well."

* * *

Her name was Therese Perrey, she had volunteered to be warden over the women prisoners, and she believed in anarchy as only someone who came from a comfortable background could.

"You're not one of _our_ contractors," she commented after some time had passed.

Erik felt like he was walking in circles around the massive support pillars and feeling his way around slimy stone walls. Nothing! He knew there was an entrance, he was sure of it…

"You don't believe in the Commune at all," she continued, "and everyone here does. Who _are_ you?"

Erik sighed, exasperated. He pitched his voice high and sing-songish. "Why, Madame! Can't you tell? I'm the Opera Ghost, here to wreak terrible vengeance on all those who delay the inauguration of this stage!" In his usual voice, he added, "It's supposed to be _La Juive_, you know."

There was silence for a moment, and then Therese began to chuckle. It soon became a full laugh, that echoed beautifully in the dark.

"Oh, it seems like an age since I last laughed," she said, "it was probably just this morning when I did, but it feels so long ago."

"Your servant, mademoiselle."

"So why the opera, Opera Ghost?"

"Why the Commune, Citoyenne?"

She paused. Erik could hear her every inhale and exhale, resounding like a drum beat. "Because there's nothing for me in that old world, nothing beyond confinement. And I rather think I'd like to know what freedom is. And so, the Commune."

Erik let her comment hang in the silence for some time, mulling over it and testing it against what he knew of the world. "And so," he said at length, "the opera."

"Oh."

After that, there were no other interrogations. It was tedious, groping around in the darkness, but there was something wonderful about how Therese laughed at all of Erik's little quips. She even sounded genuinely concerned when Erik banged into a support pillar.

Erik tried to remember the last time he had spoken with a person. At least a year, since the construction had come to a standstill.

Garnier had said, "I hope it doesn't all come undone."

Erik had nodded in response. And before that?... workmen. He had relayed orders to workmen, and eavesdropped on the patrons of the Comique as he took in every opera he had time to sneak in to.

Beyond that, his time in France had been… quiet. Free of hateful crowds, and malicious stares, and awful paranoia, and really any contact with people whatsoever. He communicated mostly by post—awkwardly, with his poor penmanship and his sleeve perennially dragging through ink, but well enough to order goods and settle accounts.

But casual conversation? No. And a pleasant casual conversation with a woman. None that Erik cared to recall.

_She did not know, _tattooed in Erik's mind. _She does not know that she chats and laughs with the devil, with a murderer, with a monster._

How delightful, that she did not know. How utterly, utterly delightful.

In the end, he found a counterweight, which when released opened to another dark corridor. A service corridor, if Erik was not mistaken. A dark service corridor that would eventually give way to a lighted hallway. Erik paused at the threshold.

"Why do you wait? Do you think it will take the wrong way?"

"No," Erik admitted, "I just remembered that I lost something back there."

"Something important?" Therese asked. She sounded impatient.

Erik thought of his mask, soft black velvet lined in silk, laying somewhere near a dead man's shadow. "Not particularly, I suppose."

"Well, then," Therese took his arm, "shall we?"

The walk was long and made in gloom, but it never veered to the right or the left.

"I think you should come with us to the café tonight. The landlady is awfully clever—while everyone else has resorted to dog and cat, she still manages to get beef."

"Or so she says," Erik pointed out.

She made a little noncommittal noise to that. "But you'll come? I'll make a proper Communard out of you before… well, before tomorrow morning, at least."

Erik laughed at her, because he could not imagine what else to do. They came to the end, and Erik threw open the door, letting Therese into the well-lit back stage. He did not look at her. He did not need to, he heard her.

Her breath caught in her throat, and was released with pitiful, strangled sound. Erik hazarded a glance at her. Pretty girl, in a sharp-featured, romanticized grisette fashion. But the green shade that tinged her cheeks was ill-becoming, and her hand had settled protectively over her nose.

What? Did she think he lopped them off as midnight snacks?

"What I lost," Erik said, as nonchalantly as he could, "was my mask."

Therese squeaked in reply.

"The stage is just beyond that hall," he continued, willing himself to stay calm and his tone even. "I could lead you, if you'd like."

She managed to nod, and for an instant her hand resting on his arm again. But she snatched it away quickly, and sobbed, and ran.

* * *

The Commune fell a month later and within a few weeks Garnier had returned with his workforce.

"You're still alive," Garnier commented.

Erik had shrugged in response, and continued on with his work. He thought of his future, and his half-penned opera, and of that vast, dark lake and its inaccessible far shore. What might one do with such a space?

The question consumed him, and at length he determined to appraise its value at closer range. He took a lantern and descended to the cellars.

An envelope had been jammed between the door and its frame—it was addressed to 'the Opera Ghost.'

It took a moment before Erik realized that the envelope was for him. Not a name, just a patently bizarre title. How many of those had he masqueraded with over the years?... The Living Death, the Angel of Death, the Trap-Door Lover… yes, Erik could certainly see a theme that had begin when he was nothing more than a child. Fate, or damnation of his own devising? Or, of the world's?

The envelope contained no letter, just a scrap of cloth. A ladies' handkerchief, edged in lace. Two holes had been cut into the fabric and hemmed, and two blue hair ribbons had been affixed as ties.

He held it up to his face. A mask, of course. A mask, rather like his first mask. At the corner, in fanciful script, _TCP_ was embroidered.

He clutched the white gossamer white mask as he trekked back to the shore, running his fingers over her stitches. When he arrived, and his lantern cast phantoms on the black water, he threw the mask in, watched it float and then slowly sink.


	6. Panache Noir

Paris, 1876

There was rumor that Jules Giry, the principal set artist who had been responsible for the lifelike piazza in _La Juive_ and the decadent Eastern Court in _Le Roi de Lahore,_ was mad. He was rat-faced and shifty-eyed, but elsewise the kindest man in the company, a man who never stood on ceremony and always had a hand available. He had a wife who had probably possessed a sort of ruddy-faced prettiness at fifteen, but it had abandoned her by the time she was thirty.

(It was hard to say is Madame Jules was mad as well, for she lived in a world of fairies and goblins and ghosts; but such a world was not out of place in the wings of a theater.)

But Jules loved his dull wife, and doted on his ugly little daughter, and was generally deemed too happy for a man on the right side of sanity.

The backstage gossips were all vindicated when they found Good Monsieur Jules hanged from the catwalks with a note of apology tucked in his pocket.

Besides Madame Jules—whom everyone started to called 'Madame Giry,' to better separate her from the unseemly tragedy—Erik was the most put out.

He had rather liked Jules for his talent, and was sorry that the Garnier should lose him. But more than that, he did not like the idea of the man's death being ascribed to his hand. And, what, with the rope and the rafters… it was impossible for there not to be whispers.

And, well, Madame Giry was the most ardent believer in the ghost. She would not hesitate to spread the tale, if she came to hear it and believe it.

He bought her a box of English toffee, three black feathers to replace the white ones she wore in her bonnet, and scribbled out a note.

_My condolences._

_O.G._

* * *

It was sometime later that he was considering how best to take his salary, and he noticed Madame Giry's nimble fingers. She mostly used them to steal the stage manager's cigarettes, but also at times to tuck a note into someone's pocket.

A useful skill, Erik thought, one that would fit in nicely with his own ideas. How to obtain her services? How to ask _a favor_ of her?

Madame Giry did not scare, though she did like the idea of an intrigue. She might help Erik on principle. He tipped her well, when she attended him in Box Five…

But, no. Offering her money would buy him nothing; confections seemed a dubious salary to rest a quarter of a million francs annum on.

He found the solution as he reviewed the ballet corps. Little Meg was still far from beautiful—in truth, she looked rather like her father—but she was not untalented. Give her another few years, and La Sorelli a broken foot, and she might be doing solos with some measure of aplomb. Then he caught Madame Giry's voice.

"She is _my_ daughter!" she said to some other theater worker. "She is my daughter, Little Meg." Her voice, unrefined by nature and made shrill by premature age and car, fairly sparkled with pride.

Erik thought he might just love the faded widow for that, for the remarkable love she held for a wholly unremarkable daughter. Would that all mothers felt their duty so keenly. Would that all mothers would be content with promises of their children's future.

Erik penned a letter to Madame Giry, a list of every ballerina who had married notoriously well. It was his unspoken bribe for a job well done, a payment that Erik had no way of funding. But that did not matter. Little Giry had shrewd, sloe eyes. She did not need Erik's help with this.

_1885: Meg Giry, Empress!_

* * *

It was some weeks later, when Carmen was singing her infamous Habanera, that Erik summoned Madame Giry to Box Five. He sequestered himself in the hollow wall, and let his voice drifty enticingly.

"Madame Jules—" none of this 'Madame Giry' nonsense for Mad Jules Giry's wife— "Madame Jules, do you see that envelope on the ledge? Would you do me a favor?"

He could picture the feathers in her cap coming to attention, and when she spoke, there was s mile in her voice.

"Certainly, Monsieur!"


	7. Me Voici!

Me voici!_ is __Méphistophélès' opening lyric in _Faust._ In a round about way, I really think Christine and Erik have more of a Faust-Méphistophélès__ dynamic between them than Marguerite-Faust. …Does that make Raoul the Marguerite?_

* * *

_Paris, 1881_

It was hard for Erik to believe that he had already been in his twenties when he had first attended an opera.

_Attended_ was perhaps the wrong word. He had snuck into the theater in Saint Petersburg and concealed himself in the rafters above the stage. It was the world premier of Dargomyszhsky's _Rusalka_, and Erik had nearly fallen to his death in astonishment. The primal power of folk music he had known, the weirding force of Koranic recitations. Snatches of European parlor music—Handel stuck in his mind from his earliest memories. And always with him, there was the music that lived in his blood, his heart beating an eternal measure.

And yet, for those few hours, it had all vanished like a crone's cursing lullaby, and he was obliged to believe in heaven—for where else could something like _this_ come from?

Of course, it had not taken Erik long to discover that there were better operas than _Rusalka._ He now held it in the same indulgent contempt one held for any old childhood pastime.

But that did not stop him from yearning for the return of that _feeling_ _Rusalka_ had dragged from him. Surely there was some piece, surely there was some voice in the world that could live at such heights. Not for a mere evening, but in perpetuity.

It was not _his_ compositions, he had found. Those burned and scarred, to be sure, but he doubted that they could ever bestow such a wash of peace and joy on a listener.

And it was not _his_ voice, he had discovered, wondrous though it was. He could not help but think that it must be a woman's voice, a woman's song, that would finally bit the bill.

And was it so unreasonable to assume that such a special individual might be found in the Garnier? The company had made a reputation for itself, after all. Excellence was the order of the day—was it not possible that something even _more_ than that might be found in its halls?

To that end, he listened, and watched, and critiqued every voice that came into his opera house.

Yet somehow, he had nearly missed _her._

The newest graduates of the Conservatory were flooding the Garnier, and Erik was starting to find their auditions tedious. So, apparently, were the director and the stage manager. Their ennui was a tremendous stroke of good fortune. (Was fate finally smiling on him?) They decided to delay _her_ group for a day, and by then Erik had rallied himself again, harping on his self-mandated duties as the guardian of the Garnier's artistic purity. He settled in to take notes and ultimately make _recommendations._

It had not been promising at first.

What was she trying for?

_Chorus. Soprano. _

Who was she?

_Christine Daaé._

German?

_No, Swedish._

How old?

_Sixteen._

How long at the Conservatoire?

_Two years, since her father's death._

Did she have any letters of recommendation?

_Yes, from the Widow Valerius and her first instructor from the Conservatory._

(No one thought to ask if Erik was bored out of his skull, which he was.)

What would she sing?

_Ombra mai fu._

Didn't she say she was a soprano?

She had been demure before, but was now positively sheepish.

_She was out of voice today._

And on that inauspicious note, Christine Daaé began her audition.

It was wholly unspectacular. There was nothing of the proper emotions in her voice, nothing of character, nothing of strength.

So why did it stay with Erik so long after she had been dismissed?

Pitch, he realized later that night. _Perfect_ relative pitch. A real sense of the music, and a visible desire to be led by it.

_And,_ she had managed to sing _decently_ whilst using the shoddiest technique. No one should have been able to sing half so well while standing half so badly. But there was still a hint of purity in her voice, a glimmer of unguided potential. It was as if she was completely raw, even after so many years of formal instruction.

…And then there were her eyes; huge, clear blue eyes that held a shadow of the passion her voice _should_ have had. It was there, he was convinced. Something magnificent was trapped in her voice, trapped in her soul, and Erik wanted to pry it out of her.

He found his way to the hiring manager's office and searched out his candidate list. Next to Christine Daaé's name, Erik crossed out the manager's prim 'no' and in his scarlet scrawl wrote down 'yes.'

Yes, and he would see how things developed from there.

* * *

She improved precious little in the following weeks and months. Always this bashful weeping angel, as miserable as a sunflower planted in a gloom.

Oh, how it tormented Erik, to half-hear such genius. It was there, it was there, it was there, just a shade paler than reality.

"I used to sing better," Erik overheard Christine confide to one of the accompanists, "But that was before my father died."

"You could take private lessons," had been the suggestion.

Christine shrugged at that. "Why? Music no longer speaks to me. What good would lessons do?"

What good, indeed, Erik had to wonder. She would need to be taught, not only proper technique, but something more, something much harder to learn and nearly impossible to impart.

She had to be taught how to _cherish_ music down into her very soul—and that, Erik was sure, was something that could be taught by example.

And who was qualified to do that for this broken little songbird?

The answer was so obvious that it took Erik a full fortnight to come up with it. Who was better equipped to mold this girl into the diva of Erik's dreams than Erik himself?

A man with a whole face, preferably one that would not scare a young girl senseless. But some things could not be helped. There had to be a way—if one existed, Erik would find it. And if need be, create one.

She fell asleep one day after rehearsals, in one of the spare dressing rooms. It was the one that the Communards had built a passage through, and Erik was suddenly glad for their meddling. He watched her sleep, for just a moment, and then threw his voice to hover softly above her ear.

"You could conquer the stage, Christine, and through it, the world." He paused, awkward. "In you, I could conjure a queen to rule the world. All you need do is _want_ to wear that crown. Please, want it."

He withdrew then, but not before he heard her mutter in her sleep a word that might have been _angel._

* * *

_Thanks very much for all of the kind reviews and support given for these little fancies of mine—I'm so glad they were enjoyed!_

_Not quite sure what's next for me. For the time being, I'm crawling back into the hole from whence I came. That said, I'm still spending an obscene amount of time in hospital waiting rooms, so who knows what I might come up with. I might finally get around to that Captain Raoul short story… maybe._


End file.
